pages

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Calendar

Yet another cake...

Today is a Christmas Day for Orthodox Christians, who follow an older Julian calendar instead of Gregorian calendar. Because my family roots are so mixed, we always celebrate on both dates: December, 25th and January, 7th. And while December's Christmas is commercialised with almost mandatory gifts, January's Christmas is not about the presents at all.It is time for family gathering, time for piece and unity.

My dad was very specific what dishes we needed to have on our table on Christmas Eve (yesterday): mostly vegetarian with one exception for fish. We had a cabbage rolls, a few salads, whole wheat berries with honey and walnuts (mmm, delicious!), roasted eggplants, pirogi with potatoes, beet salad, sauerkrout, fruit tray, and a cake.

We had more than twelve plates on a table so my dad was completely satisfied.

Today we went to Bentonville, AR to a Crystal Bridges Museum and park, which was symbolically open on 11.11.11 and was designed to "spark the imagination".

My imagination was sparked right from the entrance:

Colonial, 19th Century, modern, and contemporary art collections are on a permanent exhibit.

﻿

Rafaelle Peale, Corn and Cantaloupe. Ca. 1813

﻿

﻿﻿﻿﻿

Edward Hoppers, Roofs of the Cobb Barn. 1931

﻿﻿﻿﻿

Joe Jones, Midwest Harvest. 1940

Jim Dine, Walking to Boras. 2006

There are about 4 miles of trails that will take you to a streams, ponds, wetlands, native plants, and sculpturetoo - it is an art museum for once. They even plan to open Art Trail on January 10th.

We had our coffee at Eleven, Museum's restaurant. Coffee was good, desert ... heavenly delicious! I had danish fruit tart with blueberries and raspberries. Not too sweet or heavy, and just a perfect size portion.

Sorry, no photo. My phone stopped working when it sew my desert!

Do I recommend this place? Oh, yes. Totally. I am planning on going there again to hike the trails, to "spark imagination" with the museum's exhibits, and maybe I will take my yoga mat along - this place has a lot to offer...